So the "Hacker Ethic" means you should take a vow of poverty? I'm a professional developer that utilizes a lot of free and open source frameworks and languages. Should I not get paid for that either?
It's a concept from the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"
> Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
Hacker News is a prime example of the Hacker Ethic. Wrapping Hacker News and putting ads on it is the opposite.
Building useful software and selling it is fine, but following the Hacker Ethic would mean improving open source libraries that you consume or maybe open sourcing components of your software.
Microsoft has been a prime example lately - developing .NET and many other libraries in the open these days. They are still making plenty of money but are also winning the approval of developers who like open source.
Hacker News isn't a free service out of only the goodness of ycombinator's heart. They have "advertising" in the form of publicity for thier companies once per month.
